On the Path(os) to Romanian Postmodern Logos (original) (raw)
Romanian Literary Classics: Between Oblivion and the Urge to Make Them Known
2016
This paper is an interrogation into the nature and final results of the national project which the Romanian cultural association "Junimea" intended to implement both culturally and socially through its aesthetic program and its outspoken leader Titu Maiorescu, in the context of their country staying well behind its possibilities in the second-half of the 19 th century. Though there are quite a lot of studies already dealing with this phenomenon in the then Romanian culture, our endeavor will not ignore their contribution to this field, however it will challenge the idea that Maiorescu's efforts towards a better art were in great consonance with the real need for a satisfactory politics and society. The title of the present study is itself questioning the accuracy of some traditional inquiries into the Junimea moment of Ro-manian culture, which are more that laudatory of the role of this association as represented by Maiorescu, but tend to leave untouched its failure to...
The three postmodernisms. Two generations of Romanian writers facing the west
Diversitate si Identitate Culturala in Europa, 2019
The Postmodern Theory, that had united the previous literary generation, is challenged and partly abandoned by the generation of the 1990s. Furthermore, the very idea of a literary generation united under a literary ideology fades away in the 1990s. What happens in the transition that separates these generations of intellectuals and writers? The purpose of this essay is to describe some of the major changes in paradigm that follow the peaking of Romanian Postmodernism and to bring to debate some of the possible causes of the successive transformations of the Postmodern Theory in the peripheral context of the Romanian artistic and intellectual environment of the 1980s and 1990s.
New Paradigms in Contemporary Romanian Literary Studies (I)
Revista Transilvania, 2019
This article introduces the first part of the New Paradigms in Contemporary Romanian Literary Studies collective work that Revista Transilvania has set to publish in order to get a better picture on contemporary local literary research. Emanuel Modoc and Ștefan Baghiu argue that there is a paradigm shift at the beginning of the 2000s in Romanian literary theory and literary criticism that has its effects on today’s literary research, and describe the use of quantitative methods, World Literature concepts and transnational studies perspectives in several new research published by young scholars such as Emanuel Modoc, Daiana Gărdan, Ovio Olaru and Snejana Ung. https://revistatransilvania.ro/configurations-of-transnationalism-in-east-central-european-avant-gardes/ https://revistatransilvania.ro/novels-as-big-data-a-genre-centric-approach-to-the-romanian-novel-1900-1940/ https://revistatransilvania.ro/what-is-digital-humanities-and-whats-it-doing-in-romanian-departments/ https://revistatransilvania.ro/the-literature-about-the-former-yugoslavia-in-the-paradigm-of-world-literature/
Caietele Echinox, no 36, 2019
Andreea Stoica, on Florin Balotescu, "Spațiul poetic: revoluții, emergențe, mutații, București, Tracus Arte, 2018 in "Les Cahiers Equinox. Imaginaires de l’altérité: Pour une approche anthropologique"', p. 377 In an age of literary and aesthetic eclecticism, young researchers refuse to associate writers with exclusive formulas and poetics; they rather prefer to identify in their literary works marginal elements, deviant and atypical formulas, particularities which transcend the solid structures inherited through tradition. After completing his studies with a PhD thesis entitled Canonical and Non-Canonical Developments in the History of Romanian Literature - Sourcesand Hypostases of Poetic Space, Florin Balotescu publishes the volume Spațiul poetic: revoluții, emergențe, mutații – Poetic Space: Revolutions, Emergences, Mutations (Tracus Arte Publishing House, 2018). Thisbook of great finesse aims to reconfigure the metastructure of poetic space, whose hypostases bear a high degree of similarity despite their belonging to different times and aesthetic contexts. In order to fulfil this objective, the author proposes a new method to approach traditional literary works, forming an unusual “family” of poets and novelists who do not apparently possess similar goals and journeys. However, they share a ceaseless redefinition of the poetic zone, the tendency “to experiment (themselves)” (256), as well as the inclination to generate texts which do not adhere to a model (or overcome models). In other words, their work raises the issue of paradigm shifts.Florin Balotescu begins his volume witha chapter meant to define this alternative poetic space, different from the canonical one, and to determine its sources and theoretical delimitations by offering a new approach to the study of poetic literature. The research continues with two other chapters built in a balanced way – “Representations of Poetic Space in the Literature of the Beginning of the Twentieth Century” and “Representations of Poetic Space at the End of the Twentieth Century” – in which compelling illustrations from texts written by George Bacovia, Max Blecher, Matei Caragiale, Radu Petrescu, Gellu Naum and Mircea Ivănescu support this ambitious endeavor. Balotescu is mainly interested in the autonomous structures and the experimental aspects of these authors’ works, and in the existence of a certain “internal disposition” (32) in the proximity of their poetic discourse, which generates a distance between their works and the canon, exceeding the boundaries imposed by paradigms. This dynamic is rather involuntary, whereas their literature denotes sensitivity towards conventional models. Starting from such assumptions, this research focuses on both the canonical evolution of the selected writers – as they are considered key authors and are interpreted by means of traditional models – and the non-canonical one – as there can be found in their textual structures a series of attempts to reformulate the literary genres. Difficult to be classified, these authors connect the tradition with a “marginal phenomenon” (41). In the last chapter, the argumentation moves towards contemporary areas which include not only manifestations of an aesthetic nature, but also social, political and technical aspects, as this literature is no longer understood as exclusively aesthetical, but rather existential. Therefore, a new pattern of sensitivity takes shape, together with an internal mechanism which produces unpredictable movements and a new way of perceiving the idea of creation. The author offers a series of examples taken from contemporary literature which he considers to be representative for the idea of poetic space, including texts written by Ruxandra Cesereanu, Andrei Codrescu, Marius Conkan, Adela Greceanu, Simona Popescu. Even though the texts that head towards the notion of poetical space are restricted numerically, they belong to a territory of both neo-oneiric prose and works which explore delirium and ecstasy. Proving that he possesses the qualities of a skillful essayist, Florin Balotescu broadens the perspective on poetic literature, stepping outside the structures which have already been defined and rooted in the canon. As a researcher, he accepts the challenge of never arriving to permanent solutions, but rather questioning (and provoking) permanently, delving deep into texts with the aim of discovering hidden particularities and deviations from the normative formulas. Even though they describe tendencies and patterns which make them easier to fit into various stable categories, literary manifestations are not meant to be constrained into rigid definitions, and, in many instances, innovative approaches lead to surprising conclusions. _______________________________________________________________________ Official presentation for Caietele Echinox (as seen on http://phantasma.lett.ubbcluj.ro/?page\_id=2853&lang=en) Caietele Echinox is a biannual academic journal in world and comparative literature, dedicated to the study of the social, historical, cultural, religious, literary and arts imaginaries Editor: Phantasma. The Center for Imagination Studies, Faculty of Letters Publisher: Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania ISSN 1582-960X ROMANIA Published since 2001 2 Issues per year Echinox Journal is a peer-reviewed journal Domains: Literature; Comparative literature; Imagination studies Publication languages: English, French Abstracts and Keywords in English The review can be purchased online on the sites # Editura Mega, Cluj, Romania > http://edituramega.ro/domeniu/20-cahiers-de-lechinox # Presses Universitaires De Valenciennes, France > http://www.pu-valenciennes.fr/echi-t.htm Journal indexed in ISI Thomson – Reuters / Clarivate Analytics Link ERIH+ (European Research Index for the Humanities) Link CNCS B+, Romania (page 7, no. 143, code 353) Link 1; Link 2 ANVUR Italy (Class A) Link CEEOL (Central and Eastern European Online Library) Link EBSCO Publishing (Page 9, pos. 409) Link Central & Eastern European Academic Source Link Humanities International Complete Link Humanities Source Link MLA International Bibliography Link & FABULA Link Director: Corin Braga ( Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania ) Secretary of the editorial board: Radu Toderici ( Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania ) Editor: Alex Văsieș ( Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania ) Scientific Committee: Hugo Bauzá (Buenos Aires Academy, Argentina) - hfbauza@yahoo.com.ar Paolo Bellini (Università degli Studi dell’Insubria, Italia) - paolo.bellini@uninsubria.it Anna Caiozzo (Université de Paris VII, France) - a.caiozzo@free.fr Paul Cornea (University of Bucharest, România) - plcornea@rdslink.ro Arnaud Huftier (Université Les Valenciennes, France) - arnaud.huftier@univ-valenciennes.fr Boris Lanin (Moscow Academy, Russian Federation) - borial2003@yahoo.com Basarab Nicolescu (Romanian Academy) - nicol@club-internet.fr Joël Thomas (Université de Perpignan, France) - jthomas@univ-perp.fr Gisèle Vanhese (Università della Calabria, Italia) - gvanhese@libero.it Philippe Walter (Université Stendhal – Grenoble 3, France) - philippe.walter2@wanadoo.fr Jean-Jacques Wunenburger (Université Jean Moulin – Lyon 3, France) - jean-jacques.wunenburger@wanadoo.fr Editorial Board: Ştefan Borbély (Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania) - stefan.borbely@gmail.com Ruxandra Cesereanu (Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania) - ruxCes@yahoo.com Sanda Cordoş (Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania) - sandacordos@yahoo.fr Laura T. Ilea (Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania) - airarle@yahoo.com Ovidiu Pecican (Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania) - pecolino999@yahoo.com Horea Poenar (Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania) - hflpoe@gmail.com Doru Pop (Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania) - doruaurelpop@yahoo.com Mihaela Ursa (Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania) - mihaela_ursa@yahoo.com Contact address: Facultatea de Litere, str. Horea 31, 400202 Cluj-Napoca, Romania Email: corinbraga@yahoo.com
Asynchronous Instantaneity. The Posthuman Turn in the Romanian Literary System
Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory, 2023
Cultural globalisation, made possible by the enhancement of digital infrastructure, has led some scholars to reconsider the dynamics of core-periphery transfers, stressing the immediacy with which popular culture crosses national and linguistic borders. This is the case of Theory in the ‘Post’ Era: A Vocabulary for the 21st-Century Conceptual Commons, which in its preface proposes an epidemiological model of the transfer of cultural capital. In my paper, I want to relate “the contagion theory” to the import of Posthumanism in Eastern Europe and contemporary Romanian literature. The links between Posthumanism and contemporary literature have provoked sometimes productive, sometimes controversial local debates. The way in which this philosophy/theory is naturalised calls into question the instantaneity with which ideas circulate, since there are cases in which its core meanings are hijacked in Romanian culture. This cultural dysmorphia (along with other cultural products considered self-colonial) demonstrates how the unequal relations between centre and periphery are not completely dissolved by the digital turn but generate a new paradox of asymmetrical instantaneity. The aim of my article is to see how the theory of posthumanism travels from the centre of Anglo-American cultural studies to the semi-periphery of the Romanian literary field, where several mutations can be noticed: first of all, the shift from SF literature to poetry, which has a greater symbolic capital in Romania. I will analyse the contexts of the “regimes of relevance,” the transformations brought about by Romania’s accession to the European Union, and the mechanisms of diffusion of posthuman theory in the local space.
Faces of Modernity in Romanian Literature: A Conceptual Analysis
Alea: Estudos Neolatinos, 2014
This study analyses the manner in which Romanian criticism chose to define and outline literary modernity. From this point of view, I have highlighted a series of deficiencies in the aforementioned endeavors, among which the reductive vision on modernism, which is limited either to a strictly formal meaning (as literary technique) or to a substantial one (as ideological attitude), the emergence of a non-differentiated concept of modernism, which tends to embrace any secondary effects or, on the contrary, of a generic anti-modernism, irrespective of the level or the direction in which it opposes modernism. Therefore, the present study sets forth a new classification of Romanian literary modernity, which includes, besides modernism, an anti-modernist direction and an ultra-modernist one also.